Long Island Arboretums Majestic Trees

100 Year Old Beech Tree (Planting Fields Arboretum)

Trees certainly tell a story of time and on my journeys through various Long Island Arboretums I have come across some spectacular works of nature worth noting.  These trees range in ages up to 150 years, are virtually irreplaceable, and their beauty and stature are unsurpassed.    Enjoy the journey.

150 Year Old Beech Tree (Old Westbury Gardens)

Weeping Purple Beech (Planting Fields Arboretum)

American Redwood (Planting Fields Arboretum)

Weeping Cutleaf Japanese Maple (Old Westbury Gardens)

Weeping Blue Atlas Cedar (Planting Fields Arboretum)

 

American Beech Tree (Planting Fields Arboretum)

 

Weeping Japanese Maple Crimson Queen (Old Westbury Gardens)

Blue Atlas Cedar (Planting Fields Arboretum)

Weeping Alaskan Cedar (Old Westbury Gardens)
 

Sargents Weeping Hemlock  (Planting Fields Arboretum)

     

The oaks and the pines, and their brethren of the wood,
have seen so many suns rise and set, so many seasons come and go,
and so many generations pass into silence,
that we may well wonder what "the story of the trees" would be to us
if they had tongues to tell it, or we ears fine enough to understand.
~ Author Unknown~,
quoted in Quotations for Special Occasions by Maud van Buren, 1938

 

As Always...Happy Gardening!
 

 

Author: Lee@A Guide To Northeastern Gardening, Copyright 2013. All rights reserved

 

 

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Custom Crossfire Burning System Fire Tree

This custom crossfire burner was created to sit inside a 400 pound Oak Steel Log set for Winter Park Ski Resort in Colorado. It is designed to pump 372K BTU of Natural Gas. What you see here in the video is only 250K BTU. We cant wait to install it and see how she REALLY burns!

For all your custom outdoor burning system needs, please visit us online or call today. 1-877-566-5255.

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Landscape Garden Design – The Difference between a Good Garden and a Great One

A Garden can be a thing of beauty: provided a little care and attention goes into its creation. Thats where Landscape Garden Designs come into play – the difference between creating a Garden in a considered fashion and just letting things grow. With a little forward thought and planning, any outside space can become a glorious addition to house or home.

The difference between a planned Garden, or a properly planned Garden, and a non planned Garden, is this: when you plan, you are able to give a natural effect much better than if you just throw things together and hope for the best. Thats because a Garden is a defined space, usually bordered by a hedge or a fence. Nature is undefined, and so looks "right" when things just grow where they fall: a Garden, which is humanitys attempt at capturing nature in an easy to swallow format, only really looks correct if it has been planned in advance. Landscape Garden Design, which produces a sensible plan for every part of a Garden, so all its elements can be considered as a flowing whole, allow homeowners to reproduce nature in miniature without the end results appearing too haphazard or confusing.
Lets consider, for a moment, the natural world. The way it works and the appearances it presents – all of which we try to replicate in an intelligible way when we Design and plan Gardens. In the natural world, everything growing in a certain area "looks" right together. This is because all of those plants and Landscape features are correct for the place in question. Sand, stone and cacti for a desert, for example – deciduous trees, shrubs and low lying fern cover for woodland. The thing about Gardens, which is why we use Landscape Garden Designs to get them right, is that they try and draw in all sorts of plants and effects from various natural Landscape types and areas of the world. Without forward planning, throwing that little lot together is going to result in nothing more nor less than a big mess. Designing a Garden, with the help of professional Landscape Garden Designers (British run 4 Winds is a good example here), allows a homeowner to replicate the effects of disparate areas of the natural world without having the whole finished article look thrown together or peculiar.

Landscape Garden Designs allow one to use colour, seasonality and growth rate to create an ever changing, ever growing living picture. Because it has been Designed according to the in depth knowledge and experience of a professional, a Landscaped Garden looks just right during every season of the year – theres never too much or too little going on and everything, from the choice of plants to the size and shape of the lawn or patio areas. That means that one can choose ones favourite aspects of the natural world (which can be as exotic or as homely as ones own preferences) and reproduce them in a controlled way.

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RILL

A rill is a narrow and shallow incision into soil resulting from erosion by overland flow that has been focused into a thin thread by soil surface roughness. A rill may also refer to narrow channels of water inset in the pavement of a garden, as a water feature. The precedents come from Persian Gardens and Moorish Spanish Gardens. One of the most historically significant is found at the Alhambra in Granada Spain.  At the Court of the Lions (within the Alhambra) a central fountain links the surrounding buildings through a cruciform pattern of water channels or “rills”.

image from wallpapers.bassq.nl

More London is a new development on the south bank of the River Thames, immediately south-west of Tower Bridge in London. It includes the City Hall, a sunken amphitheatre called The Scoop, office blocks, shops, restaurants, cafes, and a pedestrianized area containing open-air sculptures and water features, including fountains lit by coloured lights. The Hilton London Tower Bridge hotel opened in September 2006. Set on 13 Acres, it uses water (The Thames, rills and fountains) as the backbone, the design gesture that links it from one end to the other.  

image from morelondon.com

Beginning at London Bridge Station/Tooley Street a series of simple fountain pools evolve to a rill that runs diagonally (a thousand feet, approx) through the buildings at the center of a pedestrian esplanade to the River Thames with the Tower Bridge as it’s focal point. Before you arrive at the River Thames you are greeted at the Scoop, an open air ampitheatre with at grade fountains. A thoroughly engaging public space.

follow this onsite model--entrance is at bottom, photo tour following bring you to the top of model.

pools of water @ entrance w. rill on left/Tooley street to right

Master planning and design for the area was by Foster + Partners, while the water features (rill, pools and fountains) were developed with Robert Townshend Landscape Architects.

all imagery unless noted otherwise are ©Todd Haiman 2010

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Custom Fire Tree Burner

We recently were commissioned by Winter Park Ski Resorts to re-weld their aging steel log display and build them a burner that would make any fire lover proud. So we did and we built them this custom crossfire burner "fire tree." Watch and bask in the glory of all its majesty. Wait until you see the next one we build for them, its twice as big!

If you are in the market for a custom fire pit or outdoor burning system, please visit us online or contact us today. 1-877-556-5255

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VERTICAL GARDEN

READING ROOMS


Project: An above-grade, on-structure courtyard for library building designed by world renowned architect Robert A. M Stern.  Courtyard is to be a roof garden space above the mezzanine level, surrounded on three sides by structure yet open with a view on the southern exposure side. Building drawings were supplied; program was developed based upon the Jacksonville Library’s existing and anticipated future needs.


Creation: The design addresses the awareness, promotion and implementation of a sustainable environment, renewable energy sources and associated technologies within the learning environment of a library. There is a tremendous opportunity inherent in building this design to incorporate and educate users, students and visitors on these lessons within a library and a public setting.


From an aesthetic and structural perspective, the program addresses the following:
1) considers the courtyard as a conduit of nature, (2) takes advantage of the “verticality of space”, (3) articulates itself to the pre-existing aesthetic, and (4) creates intimacy within a public realm.


This roof garden is created with an overall grid design. Entrances to the garden from surroundingstructures on all three sides become linked allees with a dual axis aligned between them. Antithetic to the precedent of a traditional library reading room (which is typically designed as a “war room”), this design proposal creates exterior “READING ROOMS.” These rooms can be enjoyed in solitude or in small groups; seating is flexible – chairs can be within the room or outside them. Each structural room within the courtyard maintains its own green roof.


I envision 10’ square outdoor “rooms” constructed with recycled steel that create a framework. Plexiglass walls will be attached on opposite sides with the two remaining sides open. Lighting panels surround the exterior facade of the plant container unit, which sits above the room. When viewed at night, the illuminated panels covering these plant containers create a surreal effect of floating books. These reading rooms are fitted with interior lights for reading at dusk, as the library maintains evening hours.


Hidden within the steel framework of each room are irrigation and drainage tubing to supply the plant material above. Also hidden within the steel framework are electrical cables to power the exterior light panels encasing the plant and the interior reading lights. The electrical power is sourced via the renewable energy of the solar panels on the Library’s roof.


The Jacksonville Library is a five-story building with a footprint that occupies the majority of a city block. Considering the enormity of the roofs surface, there is substantial stormwater run-off. This proposal envisions captured rainwater/stormwater run-off, harvesting graywater and creating storage for this in cisterns or rain barrels. Irrigation of low-water-demand vegetation would be implemented with climate-based controllers on a drip irrigation system.


Hardscape surface to be created out of recycled material – cobbles for the floor, brick surrounding the planters. Tall native grasses at the southern edge form a natural looking boundary obscuring the invisible edge of the plexiglass wall beyond it. The choice of structural evergreens as plant material within each roof container contributes to complementing the classic, formal design of Robert A.M. Stern’s architectural aesthetic for the building. Library executive offices, meeting rooms on the higher floors and public rooms on the lower floors all have equal views to the multi-level plant material.


The design of reading “rooms” within a garden metaphorically pays homage to the garden designer’s lexicon, which commonly refers to gardens as outdoor rooms.

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Landscape Design Landscape Design Ideas

Landscape Design,Landscape Design Ideas

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Here are some photos of the show gardens from my visit to the Chelsea Flower Show

This is pure elegance...

The Daily Telegraph Garden designed by Anabella Lennox-Boyd.  Her inspiration for this garden is the purity of design found in a Japanese garden, which is combined with an English planting tradition to create a harmonious, visually stimulating space.  

Hope one day I can be half this good!

"I Dream, I Seek Garden" designed by Shao Fan. COmminsioned by theK T Wong Charitable Trust to "build bridges" between China and Europe through cross cultural projects.  This is a scholars garden, a lost Chinese Garden, partially unearthed from the London soil.

Oceanico Cafe Garden designed by Diarmund Gavin

The Laurent Perrier Garden designed by Tom Stuart Smith

I intend to post more of the imagery from my visit to Chelsea at a later date....

will edit the 400+ images I shot for the sake of my good friend Pierrick

..... stay tuned!

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Beautiful Home Garden

Beautiful home garden

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Warming Trends Webisode 8 Custom Welded Oak Steel Log Kit

In this weeks webisode, we construct and weld a custom Oak Steel Log Kit for outdoor fire pits. From start to finish, we show you how common plain steel pipes transform into artistic, durable and contemporary log kit grates for outdoor use. Perfect for commercial properties, these log kits will not only protect your burning system and disperse heat, but they are aesthetically appealing and will last the lifetime of your fire pit.

These log kits are great for bar and restaurant establishments, ski and golf resorts, hotels and other commercial properties. Custom sizes are available and we can build anything you need.

Here are the logs with a burner in action

Visit us online or contact us today! 1-877-556-5255

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Leyland Cypress

Cupressocyparis leylandii ( Leyland Cypress )

A hybrid of the Monterrey and the Nootka Cypresses from the West Coast; the Leyland cypress is now one of the most popular evergreen screen trees in the Mid Atlantic U.S. What most people dont know is that it can easily exceed 100 feet when mature and some trees on good sites may even reach the massive dimensions of its parents and attain sizes of 200 x 70 x 11 feet after a few centuries. Growing up to 4 inches in a single week, the Leyland Cypress can grow up to 5 feet in a year and can increase its trunk diameter by 2 inches. From the cuttings they are grown from ( Leyland Cypress is not propagated from seed ) it can grow 23 x 8 feet in just 5 years; 82 x 17 feet in 20 years and can reach a trunk diameter of 5 feet in 70 years. When mature and limbed up they can look like a giant Virginia Red Jumiper. Very attractive in groves, the brown stringy bark in itself is attractive. With age the lower limbs will start to die off from shade ( especially when they are planted too close together ) and these branches should be removed. There is no tree more often unappropriately planted than this, sometimes even used as a foundation plant. Yes, Leyland Cypresses are not costly however no money is saved when in the future a massive oversized plant will need to be removed.
Still, the Leyland Cypress along with the Green Giant Arborvitaes are among the most valuable windbreaks and screens in the Eastern U.S. The Leyland Cypress is hardy to -20F, it grows best in deep rich well drained soil and is very tolerant of drought and salt spray. Can be prone to canker on less than ideal sites. Bagworms can be an occasional problem, removing the bags as soon as they are noticed can decrease the number of them.
Its attractive foliage is very dark green and in flattened drooping sprays.
Many Leylands on the East Coast were destroyed during the blizzards of 2010. Cryptomerias and Green Giant Arborvitaes are far sturdier and long lived and that should be kept in mind when selecting a tall screen. The Leylands are fast growing but all too often are NOT permanent. Propagation is from cuttings taken summer through winter.


* photos taken on Feb 2009 @ U.S. National Arboretum, D.C.


* photo taken on July 2004 @ Tyler Arboretum near Philly, PA


* photos taken in Howard County, MD





* photos taken on Apr 26 2013 in Columbia, MD

Castlewellan Gold
Fast growing, dense and upright, reaching up to 63 feet with bright golden-yellow new foliage.

Gold Rider
A fast growing, dense, pyramidal large tree, reaching up to 20 feet in 10 years, 40 x 15 feet in 20 years, and eventually much larger.
The foliage is intense golden-yellow.
A great substitute for the often boring regular Leyland.

* photo taken on Sep 19 2013 in Howard Co., MD

Greenspire
Narrow and green. To 90 feet with a trunk diameter of 3 feet

Haggerston Gray
Glaucous foliage. Reaches up to 120 feet with a trunk diameter of 5 feet.

Harlequin
Reaches up to 43 feet with a trunk diameter of 1.5 feet in 22 years.

Leighton Green
Reaches up to 103 feet with a trunk diameter of 6 feet.

Naylers Blue
A less common variety however is very beautiful having glaucous sweeping branches and weeping foliage. A Nootka Cypress look alike, it grows to 33 x 17 feet in 10 years; 70 feet with a trunk diameter of 26 inches in 29 years and eventually alot more.

Robinsons Gold
Fast growing but dense and conical, reaching up to 68 feet with a trunk diameter of 2.5 feet with golden new foliage.

Cupressocyparis x ovenii
A hybrid between Chamaecyparis nootkatensis & Cupressus lusitanica. It is very fast growing and pyramidal in habit, with flattened dark bluish-green sprays of foliage.. Some records include: fastest recorded growth rate - 4 feet; 6 years - 18 feet. Hardy zones 6 to 9.

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